What Makes Us Different

Happy FamilyUnfortunately, many dental practices today and patients alike settle for and have gotten accustomed to mediocre dentistry. Dentists are not completely to blame for this unfortunate truth. Insurance companies have for decades exercised more and more influence on a Doctor’s ability to deliver quality treatment. Because insurance companies continue to cut coverage for patients and reimbursement to Doctors, many Doctors are forced to compensate by using cheaper dental labs and materials and speeding up treatment time and rushing through appointments. This is why at many offices it feels like you have a long wait then when you are finally seen you are just thrown into the assembly line, and in and out you go. While it is true that technology in dentistry has made vast leaps and bounds over the last few decades, the overall quality and longevity of dentistry has in some respects declined. The truth is many dentists today are using cheaper materials and employing techniques and procedures that require less chair time in an effort to make up for lost income to the insurance industry vacuum. In reality, crowns and fillings today are only lasting half as long as they did 20 years ago. We think this is unacceptable.

At our office it is different. For example, our crowns are made of the highest quality zirconia, porcelain, and gold and still hand fabricated by a small private dental lab. We are all about quality which is why we pay more instead of using one of the big commercial dental labs that so many offices are using today which are cheaper but do not deliver the same high quality that smaller labs do. Most of our crowns last over 20 years meanwhile the average crown at the average dental office lasts less than 10 years. Many offices now days have a crown milling machine in their office that make the crowns that go into your mouth. They use these machines because it is more cost effective than to pay a professional laboratory to fabricate your crown using superior materials. These in office “same day” crowns are much more likely to break and often times do not have an accurate fit which will lead to premature decay underneath your crown.

Unfortunately the “Wal-Mart effect” is beginning to take foot in Dentistry. Corporations are building more and more dental offices across the country. What you may not realize is that in a corporate dental office corporate management, *not the dentist*, is often times making important decisions that could affect the quality of your treatment, from the quality of materials used, to the actual procedure that is rendered.

We in contrast, are not a corporate dental office or part of a “Dental Chain”. In a corporate dental office, the Dentist who is providing treatment for you is almost always an employee, not the owner. This is why you may have noticed that you end up seeing a different Dentist every other time you go to the Dentist. Dr. Magruder is the owner of this office which has been a privately owned dental office since 1929. Expect to see the same Dentist every time you come to our office and expect to receive care which is much more personalized.

We can provide most of your dental needs here at our office but we know when it is best to refer our patients to specialists. We don’t believe it is in our patient’s best interest to attempt every procedure in our office. Some procedures require advanced training and skill in order to be completed with predictable success. Many offices on the other hand attempt almost every procedure in their office, which in many cases is not in the patients best interest and can lead to failures that can compromise a patient’s Dental health for life! General dentists are more than capable of handling most dental procedures but some of the more complicated procedures such as complex root canal treatment and intermediate to complex implant placement should be handled by the Endodontist and Oral Surgeon/Periodontist respectively. Think of it like your Family Physician doing heart surgery on you instead of this complex surgery being performed by a Cardiothoracic Surgeon.